Episode 22, "Uncovering the Past"

The heroes filed into the grand dining hall of the Quanlo mages guild and sat around a huge, ornately carved wooden table. On one end sat Reeser Cloudlake, headmaster of the guild; at the other, one Malik Everborne, guild historian and archivist. Trace joined the party for the feast as did a couple other apprentice mages who were there overseeing the entire dinner affair.

Upon Reeser's request, the heroes recounted whatever stories they could summon from their recent travels involving anything odd or supernatural in order to bring Malik up to speed. Beginning back in Lehren, they described the Embershale mine and the breach to the Underdark, the encounter with the aboleth, Quar Jezz't, the blighted ogre who--after rampaging through town--died and gave rise to ghasts amidst a pool of black ichor, various sightings involving the massive undead black dragon, the tomb of Urzaan and its strange illusory bubble, and the recent undead onslaught thought to have originated from a nearby lumber camp.

Malik listened to the historical recounts with intense fascination, and finally he and Reeser offered their own findings as the food finally arrived to the table: a handful of missing mages, a potential connection between the "eye" amulet found in the tomb and a rough sketch of some mages made during the early days of Quanlo, and another sketch of a dragon flying high above the countryside--again, created during the founding days of the city. Neither Malik nor Reeser found any direct mention of any sort of organization or cult revolving around the amulet's sigil, but Malik suggested a possible connection between the portal found in the tomb and another bizarre discovery in the Thanon mines.

While Malik and Reeser contemplated all of the disparate stories and goings-on, Vyreth and Malik suddenly and intensely took ill. Someone(s) had poisoned the food! Vyreth struggled to hold it together at the table but soon collapsed at the table. Malik, turning ghostly pale and weak, began to hemorrhage blood from his eyes and nose. Fhasys was first to notice the signs and alerted Reeser, who immediately called for a guild-wide lock down until they could sort out what was going on. The dwarven cooking crew was filed out of the kitchen and questioned by the guards while Doc set to work healing Malik and Vyreth. Once the chaos of the poisoning subsided, Reeser suggested the heroes search the vacant rooms for clues and then head to the Thanon mine with Malik to investigate whatever was discovered.

While searching the mage quarters, Talos discovered recently used ink and paper, took a coal rubbing, and a strange rhyme--written in Abyssal--emerged: "Ruby soul of heartless glass, callous, cruel, and treacherous past." Based on the language alone, the party assumed it had something to do with the tomb and the dragon as well... Collecting their things (and helping Malik to his feet, exhausted from the poisoning), the heroes left the guild for the Thanon mine.